


Of the Wrong Sort

by scratchedandinked



Series: TMA Hurt/Comfort Week 2020! [5]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Add-in post explosion, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Canon Compliant, Comfort as much as he can though...., Gen, I'm sorry he dies again, Mentions of burns and blood, confusion and hallucinations, last moments with jontim, mentions of danny, oh too late apologies too i am SORRY
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-23
Updated: 2020-12-23
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:07:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28269618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scratchedandinked/pseuds/scratchedandinked
Summary: Most things written about explosions always attempted to tackle describing the unfamiliar auditory experience. Penning just how loud it is. How the greedy inhalation of oxygen by the swarming fire has a near-deafening swoosh. How, for as bright as the thing is, you can hear every frying part of your eyesight pop just as the explosives did. What no one talks about though, is the silence that follows. No matter how frantic or stumbling the first moment of realizing one is still alive may be, the world immediately becomes an absence of. The fire is gone—or simply smoldering embers now—and the world just seems to be caught in a pause between disasters. But nothing dares make a sound in the wake of something so furiously powerful, careless, and ferocious. Any sound would just become a whimper.Jon’s calls for his friends were no exception.[Jon comforts an injured Tim after the explosion of the Unknowing]
Relationships: Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist & Tim Stoker
Series: TMA Hurt/Comfort Week 2020! [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1893754
Comments: 9
Kudos: 39





	Of the Wrong Sort

**Author's Note:**

> Oh hello! Yet another VERY late tma HC week fill.  
> The prompts were: delirium / Confusion, cradled, accident.

Most things written about explosions always attempted to tackle describing the unfamiliar auditory experience. Penning just how _loud_ it is. How the greedy inhalation of oxygen by the swarming fire has a near-deafening _swoosh_. How, for as bright as the thing is, you can _hear_ every frying part of your eyesight pop just as the explosives did.

What no one talks about though, is the silence that follows.

No matter how frantic or stumbling the first moment of realizing one is still alive may be, the world immediately becomes an _absence of_. The fire is gone—or simply smoldering embers now—and the world just seems to be caught in a pause between disasters. But nothing dares make a sound in the wake of something so furiously powerful, careless, and ferocious. Any sound would just become a whimper.

Jon’s calls for his friends were no exception.

“B-Basira?” Jon coughed, pushing a flat sheet of hot tin off himself with his feet. The rubber sole of his shoes beginning to droop and melt. The crumbled rubble around him had propped the metal up high enough to only heat Jon up, and not burn through his clothes or skin. “Daisy!” He wormed out of the tiny space, but every twist hurt. It ached and burned, like his bones were trying to bend in the opposite directions to his muscles. “Tim? A-Anyone?”

Jon’s voice was like the squeak of a hinge, worn and groaning from use—overuse. But unlike rusting metal that only got worse with continuous squeaking, Jon felt he was running out of time before he’d go silent again.

“Basira? Basira, are you there? Can you hear me?” Jon put a hand to his mouth to make sure it was moving. “Is anyone… _alive_?”

The silence was agonizing, teasing with the rippling feeling that something would answer him… _now_ … okay _now_ … _please_? The following moment of silence when Jon had to reconcile that he was alone was always _just_ as silent: the quiet shameful hope that something could interrupt his hopelessness.

Jon rolled onto his stomach, trying to look at the floor around him. The crackling fire sounded like static, the heat bursting at Jon’s face in waves. His glasses were smeared with soot and cracked along the bifocal line of his right lens, but they protected his eyes from feeling too dry. He winced as he blinked, sure he would open his eyes just as the roof caved in on top of him. Only his squeaky pleas for help lasting in the cavernous ruins.

Jon tried— _begged_ , rather—to use the Eye to see if there were any other survivors with him. If any of his friends were trying to answer back with their own subconscious, silenced cries. Unsure how to navigate the flood that was promised by knocking on the door in his mind, Jon was met with only the white hot and overwhelming pain of burning from the inside-out, then outside-in.

He groaned and slammed the door shut again, pressing the heels of his palms against his temples. The sensory overload made Jon feel like he could pass out again, or maybe just start vomiting. Or some combination therein that would spoil all chances of him, or anyone else, making it out alive. Jon had to stay awake, the Eye became a _useless_ curse if Jon was too incapacitated to use it and find those that were left.

Out of the rubble ahead of Jon, the silence bowed to a flow of muttering and a long groan. The top, loose layer of crumpled drywall and foundation began shifting, a stray hand sticking through. A detonator was still gripped in his hand.

“Tim! Tim, I’m here.” Jon yelled, digging his elbows down and pulling himself forward. “Tim, don’t move. I’ll come to you.”

As he crawled up to Tim’s head, Jon pushed larger pieces of rubble from his legs and torso. Nothing was too heavy that Jon couldn’t use his limited leverage to remove, but heavy enough that Jon could begin to see dark, pulsing bruises through the rips in Tim’s clothes. Some of them were wet— skin torn and blood spilling out into Jon’s hands as he grabbed his friend.

“Tim! Tim, it’s me. I’ve got you.” Jon brushed Tim’s face free of dirt, trying to get him to understand someone was there with him. That a touch could be gentle still, and not just the world pushing down and trying to bury him.

Tim blinked against the dim lighting and harsh heat, wincing and groaning again. Jon hurried and sat up, holding Tim’s head up and resting it on his lap. Jon hunched over him, trying to act as a frail awning. Tim swatted at Jon’s hair as it hung down, uneven and partially burned away.

“Your hair.” Tim said slowly.

“It’s okay. My scalp isn’t burned. It’ll grow back.” Jon said, shaking his head. “Don’t worry about me, Tim—"

“So long…” Tim’s hand reached for Jon’s face, slapping against his cheek with little to no coordination. “It’s so _long_ , Danny.”

Jon placed his hand over Tim’s. “Tim? It’s me. It’s Jon. Can you hear me?”

“Danny… _Danny_ … Are you okay? Be careful, it’s really hot in here.”

“Tim, hey, look at me.” Jon held both sides of Tim’s face, trying to find him in the wash of water _knock knock knocking_ on the door inside his head. “I need you to tell me what hurts.”

“Nothing.” Tim said, almost wistfully. He was telling the truth. “I’m okay, Danny… Are you?”

Jon wished for the silence again. Maybe if it kept in its ongoing rushing tide, Jon could avoid answering. Avoid the _possibility_ of fulfilling the memory being conjured up by a friend’s dying and frantic brain. Could Jon let Tim die while fighting with him that _no_ his brother was _here_ and it was _him_ , or should Jon let Tim think the fatigue and lightness falling over him was in fact just a beautiful overdue reunion?

The answer was so simple, Jon wished the Eye didn’t keep reminding him of how long Tim had left.

“I’m fine, Tim. I’m really good.” Jon nodded, smiling. “We’re okay.”

“Good… Good. I—I worry about you all the time, Danny. You’re always out doing—” Tim coughed, his body surging up as he tried to clear the sticky, grittiness of smoke from his throat. Jon eased him onto his side, despite there being nothing to spit up. Tim flopped back down with a thin line of blood running back over his cheek. “Out doing something. I don’t like when it’s dangerous, Danny. Take up knitting or something. For me.”

“That’ll be my next project.” Jon nodded, wiping the crimson droplet away as it reached Tim’s ear, which was bleeding all its own. “I’ll make you a sweater for the archives. Hear it’s always cold down there.”

“Oh, that would be nice.” Tim hummed, closing his eyes. The comfort on Tim’s face was unnervingly settled and, as Jon knew, coming from a place of numbness.

“Hey—Look at me, Tim. Don’t close your eyes.” Jon jostled Tim’s shoulders, trying not to sound panicked. “I’m here.”

“I’m just thinking about the…” Tim inhaled slowly, smiling. “Yeah. That would be nice.”

“What color do you want, Tim? Keep talking to me—” The futility was overwhelming, Jon’s head pounding with a heartbeat separate from the ticking clock being presented to him, hovering over every word. “Tim? Tim! Hey, you aren’t done yet. Come on.”

“You never met my friends.” Tim said finally, his eyes fluttering open. Jon pushed his own glasses up and off his face in a rush and leaned in closer over Tim, eager to catch every loose and unplanned word spilling from his cracked, bleeding lips.

“I haven’t, have I?” Jon was unsure who he was supposed to be then; what friends Jon was supposed to pretend he knew _of_.

“They’re nice—” Tim whispered, hissing as he tried to halt another cough. “I never told you how nice they are.”

The crackling fire and smoking rumble lent mercy in reminding Jon that he couldn’t let the moment continue in silence, that he couldn’t just let Tim’s fleeting memory of his friends be met with awkward uncertainty. Jon had a duty to ease Tim through his… _measured_ moments. Maybe give Jon his own closure and clarity to the friendship he destroyed, thinking foolishly it would last forever.

Now, seeing and knowing exactly when it would end for good, Jon wasn’t sure why he was so arrogant toward something he cherished so dearly.

“Sasha… Sasha was the best. Smartest in the room, you know?” Tim managed, voice hoarse. Each inhale was accompanied by a groan. “Knew her stuff forward and backward… And now, I don’t even know—” Tim coughed, but Jon felt it was more to lose the words than clear his throat.

“She sounds lovely.” Jon agreed. He smoothed down Tim’s collar, putting out the slow-flaring ember that floated down to him.

“Oh, and Martin. You would’ve liked Martin, Danny. He’s such a trip… Always helping—but never himself. I think you two would’ve been good… Take some eagerness from you.”

“I’m sure, I’m sure.”

“And of course, Jon—from Research.” Tim squinted up at Jon, and for a moment looked to recognize him. Instead, he groaned, blinking hard against the new billows of smoke. Jon wasn’t sure how much longer the building could outlast their conversation—but Jon was frozen in place, gripping his friend as if he had the power to grab hold of his last minutes and keep him alive. “You would’ve _hated_ him.”

It wasn’t Jon’s place to be upset, wasn’t his place to even feel entitled to be hurt by Tim’s words. “I bet.”

“Oh, you’d start info-dumping over each other.” Tim’s cough was low, coming from deep in his stomach. “Both too involved for your—your own good.” Jon had to hold the silence, knowing he was not at liberty to say or sway any bit of Tim’s words. “Kind of my other brother.”

“Tim,” Jon muttered, forgetting himself. “I’m so sorry.”

Surely, it was just the smoke burning Jon’s eyes. Surely it was the flaring heat that made Jon pinch his eyes closed and steady his short, shaking breath. _Surely_ , Jon was about to drown in the guilt of sending his friend to an early grave—without the man himself even remotely aware. Tim was grinning up at (who he thought was) someone he’d missed longer and deeper, and with more aching grief, than Jon could even understand.

“No,” Tim said shortly, shaking his head with sloppy movements. “I’m sorry I kept them from you. Please don’t be mad.”

“No. No one’s mad, Tim. _No one_ is mad—”

“I know you are.” Tim’s eyes found Jon’s, but it was so unclear who he was looking at; who he was looking through to. “You think I stopped looking.”

“N-No, I didn’t. Not for a moment.” Jon adjusted Tim’s head in his lap, brushing back his hair in a third rhythm, one that denied the frantic heartbeat and the clock trying to race Tim away from Jon. “I knew you were looking. You were doing everything you could.”

“It wasn’t enough.” Tim wanted to die with unfinished business it seemed. He tried to sit up, pushing on Jon’s hands with a weak, charred grip. “I—I can’t believe I didn’t find you myself—”

“But I found you now.” Jon said quickly, forcing a smiling to appear as genuine as possible. It was delightful to know that part of it was real, but for the worst reasons. Jon _could_ smile down at his friend, but mostly out of a fast-growing pity, fear, and sadness in knowing the smile— _Jon’s smile_ —would be the last one Tim would ever see. “All is forgiven, Tim. You don’t have to worry anymore.”

Jon wondered what he would want to hear—what Tim didn’t know he needed to hear—in his final moments. He refused to Look. That felt too cheap, too much like a resolution of Jon’s own guilt rather than easing the tired soul of his dearest friend.

“Danny, I’m sorry.” Tim said quietly, gripping Jon’s shirt. He pulled Jon down, nearly folding him in half on top of him. “I’m sorry.”

“No, Tim, stop that—”

“I never told you but,” Tim pulled on Jon again, and Jon twisted to sit with his folded legs against Tim’s side. He was careful not to lean on any of his burns as he was pulled in closely. “I was always really proud to be your brother… Annoying as _shit_ but that’s why I love you.” The present tense of his words comforted Jon in a way that wasn’t meant for him, but he accepted it anyway. “I feel lucky to have been born first so I could know you your whole life.”

“I’m so lucky to have known you for even the briefest moment.” Jon broke character, holding Tim’s face. His head was pounding, eyes watering against every greatest effort to look happily at his friend. “We’re all so, _so_ lucky.”

Knowing Tim was a blessing too easily forgotten. Tim was a strong personality, a force unable to ignore, that was so easy to rely on. Jon was always aware when Tim around, either in the room or simply at the forefront of his thoughts. His jokes were loitering cracks in the hardening plaster caving around Jon, around all of them. A brightness Tim was _never_ too dampened or broken or aching to lend to his friends. To lend to Jon, even when they were anything _but_.

His time in university, before Tim, was a simpler time to understand. Something unknown couldn’t be missed, but the future for Jon promised something much worse. And Jon was scrambling to understand what it could possibly be like to no longer have Tim in his life, but still know him suspended in time.

Jon pushed Tim’s hair back as he nonsensically soothed him. He felt the soot catch on his healed scarred palm. Jon was already dirty from the explosion, but he could see the additional ash creasing in his hand easily. It would be the only bit left when he eventually had to stand up and leave Tim—

“Hey… Danny,” Tim was nodding, but it seemed mostly out of an attempt to stop the lolling of his head. “can I have that sweater now. I’m getting cold.”

There was nothing Jon could offer that was of warmth and comfort. Just the flames and fire of a bitter, stained, barely-victory. Jon had only himself—they only had each other—in that moment. Jon leaned around and wrapped his arms around Tim, careful of his burns and his slow, rippling shakes.

“You’re going to be okay, Tim. I promise. You’re going to feel better soon… Real soon.”

The heartbeat under Jon’s ear outlasted the countdown in his head—the repeated crashing of waves—and he liked to think, just maybe, he had something to do with giving Tim just one more second of life… of love. Even if it wasn’t enough, or of the right sort.

Jon didn’t have the composure to Know, in that final moment, if Tim had love to hold as his final memory; his last bit to take with him to meet up with Danny. Jon didn’t think he could hold his breath long enough, the water washing over him and far over his head.

Jon knew he wouldn’t have liked the answer.

**Author's Note:**

> find me on tumblr @asheardontape! thank you for reading x


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